Factors in the Admission Decision
Welcome to the NACAC members-only resource section. The factors in admission decision resources include a downloadable fact sheet and PowerPoint slides, as well as interactive dashboards. These tools are provided to allow for additional insight into the data and to support advocacy for school counselors with policymakers at the school, district, and government levels.
*Revised August 30, 2023*
Dashboards
How do I use the dashboards? Interact with the dashboards to increase your understanding of application requirements and test score submission at four-year colleges.
In the Trends in Admission Requirements dashboard, you can see how the percentage of colleges with various requirements, including test scores and class rank, has changed from 2017 to 2021. Use the filter to see differences between public and private colleges. You can see the requirements side by side for comparison or select a particular requirement for a better view.
The Test Score Submission Trends dashboard shows changes in the average percentage of students who submitted SAT and ACT scores from 2017-2021. You can filter by public/private, acceptance rate, or see only those colleges that required tests.
The data used in the dashboards is from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). The group of colleges used for this analysis includes those that met the following criteria for the 2021 IPEDS data collection—four-year public or four-year private not-for-profit; degree-granting; accredited; Title-IV participating and military academies. Colleges with Carnegie classification “associates” or special-focus 2-year” were excluded. Colleges that were open admission in any of the five years included in the analysis (2017-2021) also were excluded. These criteria resulted in a total number of 1,532 colleges.